Archive for October 2012

Trying to put some copies of the Africa Is A Fridge EP I have mysteriously obtained from underneath some stairs somewhere on Bandcamp and am reduced to Googling for relevant information on the thing, whereupon I find this description of my work:

Pete Um – This dude performs a lot and writes a lot of material which he releases either unconventionally or not at all (because I can’t seem to find anything outside of this one EP that I have). He also likes to video tape himself a lot (like seriously, a lot.) As far as I can tell he mostly just fucks around, and could very well be an outsider musician who doesn’t know how to play any of his instruments or operate any of his gear outside of clueless experimentation. He’s like R. Stevie Moore meets The Shadow Ring. The only song worth anything on Africa is a Fridge is the titular track, which, although short, is pretty awesome. The rest is just tripe and a little too weird for anyone’s taste.

Been meaning to check out The Shadow Ring, and funnily enough I was looking at a weird Vibe Central thing Ariel gave me in a kind of magick gesture on I think his 2nd UK tour.

And while we’re rinsing the same old namedrops, I love that Bubonic Plague track matey’s put up there, and it reminds me that when I was tasked by Jo Bad Timing to do a boombox DJ set the night of that Ariel Pink gig and I played Chrome on a hunch, I was still kinda surprised when Geneva went: “Chrome. Cool.” Makes more sense now.

Little while ago I was going through piles of records trying to get rid of a few and I found the self-titled LP by Bobby Charles. No idea of provenance, but I’m guessing jumble sale a long time ago. Put it on the turntable to establish condition, decided I liked it and kept it. Thereafter I played when people were round and put it on a mixtape or two and almost began to think I was basically the-guy-that-discovered-Bobby-Charles-without-ever-googling-him-to-discover-who-he-was. I particularly like this song, which googling leads me to discover was written with Rick Danko:

Anyway, couple of weeks ago when I am engaged to DJ at the last ever Duozer gig ever with MV & EE I think to myself that I’m going to play Bobby Charles with my secret intuitive wisdom-jazz and be cool, but no sooner is the record spinning than Simon doozes up with “Ah, you got this…I played you this right, Bobby Charles?” And because I’m totally like “fuck off I invented Bobby Charles” he tells me how when he toured with MV & EE for a bit it was thEE van tape or whatever and I’m like yeah but no, and, this is actually quite surprising, I think…

And then today the man Lee Fisher starts educating the feed about Bobby and instead of soberly sorting out stuff for the gig I drunkenly write this post.

What particularly annoys me is that I had planned to get a photo of my brother and Charlie holding the LP last time we were all together but we got so fucked that we didn’t even listen to the test pressings the meeting was ostensibly convened for. Listening to. And then I coulda put that photo here:

(sound of stable door being closed carefully) A gig! This week! Phil describes it thus:

An evening of Cosmic-outsider-trash-rock discO and films
with live music from UM, MFU+JELLICA, ALEXA DISASTER, GOUP

Its a Friday night, we’ve procured a venue and we’re gonna party!!
Come help us spin the wheels and celebrate being here!

£5 squid dress code: sci-fi – punk – normall – super religious

Goup is making her live debut here at The Romsey Labour Club, which seems an unusual way for MFU & I to pay her back for a very long list of things she’s done for us, and perhaps especially me, over in Hamburg. Alexa D! has also managed to put people in front of our respective twat-jazzes in the same funky town so yes a great debt is owed to our European partners and if there’s anything we can do to offset the balance of that and the physical number of Club regulars in da club on that particular night it would be exceptionally welcomed and we, I like to think, would be exceptionally welcoming. I see it as a psychedelic showdown, a cultural High Noon, a social experiment, a promotional anomaly, a test of faith, a line in the sand, or maybe just a cheeky wink at YOU, delivered with a weird, faltering smile.

I searched for Alexa on the internet but there isn’t much. I can’t find the Goup video I wanted to post, but it’s here on Umbusiness somewhere. I couldn’t find anything of me or Phil.